Opinion In defence of our defence R&D
The degree of self-reliance in Indian defence procurement has been the subject of discussion for some time.
The degree of self-reliance in Indian defence procurement has been the subject of discussion for some time. There is no universal consensus on a definition of a self-reliance index (SRI). However,there is no bar to define some reasonable index of SRI and track its development over a period of time to give some sort of consistency.
In 1992,Abdul Kalam,then scientific adviser to the defence minister,constituted a self-reliance review committee to formulate a long-term plan. Accordingly,a 10 Year Plan for Self- Reliance in Defence Systems was formulated through joint interactions between the various departments of the defence ministry and the three services. It defined the self-reliance index as the ratio of the indigenous content of defence procurement to the total expenditure on defence procurement in a given financial year. Under this definition,imports include both direct and indirect imports i.e. imports made for services directly from a foreign vendor as well as imports made by the Defence Public Sectors Undertakings (DPSU) and Ordnance Factories (OF) in the production of various items for sales to the forces.
The SRI for 1992-93 was estimated at 0.3; the plan envisaged raising it to 0.7 by 2005. This implied that the import content of the defence procurement would be brought down to 30 per cent or less by 2005. A self-reliance implementation council was constituted to plan and monitor improvements in the SRI. But that was evidently the first and the last time anybody bothered to estimate Indias SRI. Nevertheless there is an almost universal impression,a sort of myth really,that our SRI has remained more or less steady at 0.3!
The reasons for such an impression are many. For some,since they already know that the DRDO is an ineffectual organisation,there cannot have been any improvement in SRI. Others will have read that the SRI is still 0.3 and believed it. It has taken such deep root that even the government and the Parliament have begun to accept this as gospel truth. According to the parliamentary standing committee of defence,as per the ten-year old vision plan of the ministry of defence,from 1994 to 2005,self-reliance index would have gone up from 30 per cent to 70 per cent which is at present hovering around 30-35 per cent. More recently the defence minister,speaking at the inaugural seminar of Aero-India 2009 in Bangalore expressed disappointment that,even after six decades,Independent India continued to import over 70 per cent of its defence equipment. He said the growth of indigenisation was very,very slow.
What is the real situation? It is fashionable in academia and think-tanks to excuse their absence from this debate on the ground that in India,defence is sacrosanct and no data is made available to researchers. This is far from the truth. In reality,a vast amount of hard data is made available by various agencies of the government: the MoD through the Defence Service Estimates issued every year during the budget; the Comptroller and Auditor General through his annual submission on defence services to Parliament; the evidence submitted by the government to the parliamentary standing committee on defence; the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee of Parliament; a host of other official organisations. A forensic analysis does enable one to get reasonably accurate estimates.
Some preliminary results of studying the SRI are as follows. First,the SRI for defence procurement,far from being a stationary 0.3,has fluctuated in recent times. However,the average SRI in the seven-year period from 2001-2008 was actually 0.55! Over half of Indian defence procurement was indigenous.
Secondly,among the services,the Indian Army has the highest SRI. Not unexpectedly the Indian Air Forces procurements have the least SRI.
Third,given the under-developed nature of the Indian high technology components/systems industry,defence research has to import an average of 25 per cent of components and subsystems used during the course of its research and development activities. Not surprisingly this results in a high level of imports in the final products developed by it.
The reasons for the slow level of either indigenisation or development and induction of new defence products,especially platforms,are varied and complex. R&D,especially in defence systems,is a risky affair. A risk-averse approach to development efforts will lead to a very slow growth in indigenous capabilities. High technology industries elsewhere usually spend above 10 per cent of revenue on R&D. Not so here. A blind belief in private sector with faith in the readiness of foreign defence industries to take forward the Indian defence technology capabilities,if only they were given majority holdings in Indian companies,will take us nowhere and may even result in a major setback to whatever drive towards self-reliance that we have built so far.
The writer is visiting fellow at IDSA and the National
Maritime Foundation
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